The Meat and Dairy Salesroom received a feature in Racket this month, highlighting the unique products produced and only available to purchase right here on the St. Paul Campus.
Although it may fly under the radar, the salesroom isn’t hard to find—sandwich boards helpfully point the way to the unassuming entrance on the main floor of the Andrew Boss Lab of Meat Science at the U’s St. Paul campus, and once inside, down a hallway. The salesroom is a narrow, utilitarian space with bright fluorescent lights, lined with chest freezers and refrigerator cases emblazoned with "Goldy's Smoke House." Two students at a folding table near the doorway serve as cashiers. The products are neatly arranged: packages of meat snack sticks, pints of ice cream and frozen yogurt, shrink-wrapped blocks of cheese, cuts of beef, whole chickens, and ready-to-heat items like meat loaves, marinated chicken wings, burger patties, and brats.
The biggest difference between the Meat and Dairy Salesroom and your typical grocery store is that all of the products—from the dulce de leche ice cream to the Swedish potato sausage—are produced hyperlocally on campus. Meat products come from the Meat Lab, dairy items are made at the Joseph J. Warthesen Food Processing Center (a.k.a. the Pilot Plant), and the honey is from the Bee Lab. The maple syrup logs the most food miles, arriving all the way from Chaska at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.
Story by Stacey Brooks for Racket MN. Read the full story here